On Thursday night, a fight broke out between the two Shiv Sena groups at the Balasaheb Thackeray monument in Shivaji Park, Mumbai. The incident took place when the two Sena sections confronted one other and began yelling slogans.
Members loyal to Uddhav Thackeray retaliated with “traitors go back” cries, while Shiv Sena workers yelled that the party belonged to them. Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde condemned the event, saying that “no one should create a ruckus at Balasaheb Thackeray’s memorial.”
Shinde also stated that the act “shouldn’t be tolerated” and called it “very unfortunate”. “To prevent any untoward incident and maintain law and order, we visited the memorial site a day before to pay tribute to the late Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray.”
“However, the attempt to create a ruckus on his memorial day is reprehensible and highly objectionable,” he stated. Shinde went on to say that upholding law and order in the state is a shared duty. He emphasized that, on the day of Balasaheb Thackeray’s memorial, it is his duty as Chief Minister to honour him; “yet we refrained from doing so because I didn’t want anything untoward to happen.”
The Chief Minister went on, “There was nobody at the memorial when I went. An unwarranted attempt was made to disturb the calm when Anil Desai and Anil Parab, leaders of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), arrived with followers and yelled insults at me after I departed.”
Shinde further said that the female employees of his party were subjected to derogatory remarks. He went on to say that such behaviour is incompatible with the principles advocated by Balasaheb Thackeray.
Following Shinde’s uprising in June of last year, the Shiv Sena split, and ever since then, both groups have been vying for credit for Bal Thackeray’s legacy—which his fans respectfully refer to as “Hinduhriday Samrat.”
